When You Wish Upon an Acorn
by LeaderPinhead
Summary: Because only a Dinobot would do such a thing. Now the Autobots get a little taste of what is known as "The Fangirl." [Follow up one-shot to A Decepticon's Guideline to Dealing with Fangirls]


**AN: **Because I just _had _to come back and do a fangirl one-shot for the Autobots :) It's not as good as the first one in my opinion, but meh. Whatever. It was actually pretty hard to make some of the Autobots dislike someone :(

Warnings: mild language, OOC-ness (extreme in some cases), mild "slash" references, crude humor?

Time Units  
Stellar cycle: ~7.5 months  
Vorn: 83 years_**  
**_

"Talking"  
_:Comm. Link:_

* * *

When You Wish Upon an Acorn

A Transformers/ Beast Wars One-Shot

* * *

It was an ordinary day on the Ark. Bumblebee was being overbearingly cheerful, Red Alert was spying on people, the Twins were pranking people, Bluestreak was babbling people's audial recepticors off, and Prowl was scowling disapprovingly at everything that defied logic (he scowled a lot whenever Jazz doo-woped by him). Just like every other day, Ratchet was grumbling as he paced around the med-bay, ordering his two assistants—the Protectobot First Aid and Dinobot Swoop—to perform some action while rearranging his supplies to make it harder for the Twins to find them whenever they felt like performing a prank, which was basically _all the slagging time._

"Me Swoop thought spare audio parts go in that drawer," the Dinobot said in between washing the medical berths and putting the tools Ratchet had used earlier into their proper places. "Why you Ratchet put them there?"

"Because it'll make it harder for those pit-spawned Twins to find them the next time they find the urge to make a machine that farts," Ratchet said with a scowl as he stood on the tips of his pedes to put said part on the highest shelf. "I swear I'll step on whichever human it was that introduced them to that concept. Prime will never have to know."

Swoop thought it would be a good idea not to tell the med-bot that it had been Spike. Bumblebee would have been very sad to see his human friend as a squished pile of organic manner, and Swoop thought the yellow scout was one of the last Autobots who deserved something bad to happen to him. "Me Swoop no know."

"I didn't think you would," Ratchet said reassuringly, patting the bigger mech on the shoulder as he passed by on his way to the supply closet. "First Aid! Are you done alphabetizing the closet?"

The apprentice within the closet squeaked and a crash followed immediately afterward. The CMO glared at the door until First Aid finally replied. "I might need another…five hours."

"I'll give you a half hour. You've already been in there for two." Ratchet continued on as the Protectobot knocked his helm against the now empty shelves of the supply closet. Ratchet completed a circuit around the room before coming back to a stop beside Swoop with a sigh. "I very rarely wish this, but the Decepticons need to find some power plant to attack or something. They've been strangely quiet for nearly an entire month, and it has been a very _boring_ month. Something needs to happen to keep me busy!"

"Oh! Me Swoop know how to make wish come true!" Swoop said excitedly and abandoned his current task to root around his subspace. He carefully retracted his hand and showed off the little speck he held pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

Ratchet decided to play along with his simple minded apprentice and leaned in to get a closer look at what the pteranodon held so proudly. "Swoop, that's an acorn."

"Me Swoop know," Swoop replied while shifting the seed from his fingers to the palm of his hand. "Him Hound give me corn."

"No Swoop, it's an acorn."

"That what me say. It corn."

"No, it's –you know what? Call it whatever you'd like. Why did Hound give it to you?"

"Him say to turn corn three times, make wish, then put on window for three more days. It human thing, but it make his wish come true!"

"And what, pray tell, was his wish?"

"Him wish to see blue spy again. Corn made wish come true because him be talking to blue spy in rec-room that night."

Ratchet didn't have the spark to inform the Dinobot that that was probably just a coincidence that Mirage had returned that night after being sent out on another dangerous mission and Hound had probably been worried about his best friend the day he had spoken to Swoop. It was hard to have friends in Special Ops because there was a higher chance of them not returning from a mission than the average soldier, and different mechs tended to find different ways to cope with the worry. Besides, the Dinobot was currently twirling the acorn around and whispering his secret to it before handing it out to the medic. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Put on window!" Swoop insisted, grabbing the medic's red hand when he refused to comply and curling his fingers around the acorn forced into his palm. "Dinobots no have windows. Him Snarl say mess up room's 'funk way' or something."

Ratchet sighed as Swoop skipped off to do other things now that his chores in the med-bay were complete. Carefully picking the acorn up between his thumb and forefinger, the medic stared at it critically before subspacing it. What harm would come of it to play along just a little while longer? But right now he had other things to do. "Aid, you better have those shelves perfect! I'm coming in in ten minutes."

A startled "meep!" come from the closet, and the old mech smirked at the sounds of the Protectobot hurriedly shoving things back onto the shelves. Hey, Ratchet was confined to the med-bay for the majority of the time; he had to find his entertainment _somewhere._

**[]**

Three days passed in relative silence with only the occasional Mini-Bot being found welded to the ceiling via the Twins and one reported Dinobot stampede. It was on the fourth day, noon to be exact, that the Autobot crew's life changed forever.

Ratchet, like every old day, was busy in the med-bay, this time using an unconscious Ironhide as a teaching tool for his apprentices. He was right in the middle of demonstrating how to repair the sensitive wiring in the knee joint of a mech Ironhide's (and subsequently his) age when Bluestreak rushed in. "Ratchet, Ratchet! We need you to come quick! Cliffjumper and Jazz just returned from their sentry duties when they spotted the Seekers flying around the _Ark_. So of course Cliffjumper used the cliff as a ramp to fly up and land on the top of the one, I think he said it Thundercracker, and try out some jet judo, but Mini-Bots weren't created to do that so –hey! Where are you going?"

"To whatever emergency you came in here for before your ADHD kicked in," Ratchet informed the younger mech as he rushed out of the doors. "First Aid, I'm leaving you in charge of Ironhide. If the blue and red wires touch then Ironhide will never walk again."

Bluestreak and Swoop followed after him as First Aid stayed behind, frozen in place with two of the wires, blue and red to be specific, from Ironhide's knee carefully pinched between two fingers. "You're joking right Ratchet? I can't really paralyze him if the blue and red touches…can I?" He accidently brought the wires together and yelped as the leg shot up off the table before clunking back down on it. "Oh no! I'll fix this Ironhide; I promise!"

Meanwhile the trio of Autobots was rushing down the hallways towards the entrance of the _Ark_ when they encountered the edge of a crowd of nearly_ everyone _on board. Ratchet shoved them aside with little preamble and glared at whoever protested. Swoop followed in the same fashion (only the mechs were more likely to duck out of his way before he had to resort to shoving) while Bluestreak clung to the Dinobot to get through. Finally Ratchet was able to get to the center of the crowd and assess the situation. "What's the problem that requires my expertise?"

Obviously it wasn't Cliffjumper, as he had assumed. The red Mini-Bot looked perfectly fine as he stood beside Jazz, who also lacked any grievous injuries. In fact, neither of them was hurt at all. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with you slaggers! I left First Aid in the middle of a delicate procedure just to find you two-"

A squeal cut him off mid-sentence, and Ratchet suddenly found himself tackled to the ground, his helm squeezed between two delicate yet strong hands. Vivid green optics sparkled down at him as the unknown person squealed again. "Oh my God! You're Ratchet! Like _the_ Ratchet!"

_The_ Ratchet choked as his face was suddenly slammed into a very…big femme chassis and he was almost squeezed to death before he was able to yank away. "Who in Primus' name are you?"

The femme pouted in what he supposed was a "cute" manner as he stood up and backed away. "My name is Staci with an 'i,' but I guess that since I'm a Transformer I'll have to change my name to something more Transformery. Like Dawn Star, or maybe Nightwing even though I don't have wings, which is a bummer because I specifically said I wanted to be a Seeker. Oh! My name will be from this day forward…Stacy."

"Why don't we just call her 'crackpot'?" Sideswipe surreptitiously whispered to Sunstreaker as they watched from the sidelines.

"But you already be Staci," Swoop said in confusion as he looked the strange looking being up and down. He had never personally seen a femme before, but from the descriptions he had heard from the older mechs, he very highly doubted that they were bright pink, purple, yellow, and green. And their optics didn't change color every time they turned their heads.

"No birdbrain! I _was_ Staci with an 'i'. Now I'm Stacy with a 'y'." She snorted and turned her head from the pteranodon Autobot. "Geez, I knew you Dinobots were stupid, but I didn't think it was _that_ bad."

Swoop only blinked at the insult and snatched away the wrench that had suddenly appeared in his mentor's hand. "You Ratchet always say not nice to hit femmes."

"_I_ wouldn't be hitting her. My wrench would, and my wrench doesn't take kindly to one of _my _apprentices being so openly insulted." Ratchet looked around the mysterious femme now twirling mindlessly in the middle of the circle to glare at the two he deemed responsible for finding her. "Where did you find her?"

Jazz shrugged with a bewildered frown. "Skywarp just dropped her when we tried ta attack. They flew off while we caught her, but Ah thought it was weird dat they didn't stay 'round an' fight for her. Now Ah kinda understand why they fled."

Stacy with a 'y' stopped twirling long enough to stare at Jazz dreamily and state that his accent was "hot" and it was too bad that he was "already taken" before twirling some more. The saboteur shrugged and continued. "She been sayin' weird stuff like dat the whole way 'ere."

"Don't forget how she said she was 'made for Optimus Prime,'" Cliffjumper added with a disgusted expression.

The Autobots surrounding them began to talk amongst themselves, and Ratchet made a split second decision that would have hopefully saved them. He caught the arm of the femme as she passed and threw her at Jazz with the simple command of "Return her now!"

Jazz caught her and threw her at Cliffjumper, who threw her at Bumblebee, who traded her to Tracks, who stepped out of the way with an appalled expression and allowed her to bump into Blaster, who sighed when Steeljaw decided to get territorial and chased her to Hoist, who looked absolutely flummoxed and passed her on to Sunstreaker, who snarled as she attempted to latch on to him and his brother and shoved her to Smokescreen, who collected a good amount of credits as he grabbed her aft before tossing her towards Bluestreak, who yelped and dove to the safety of the Twins leaving Swoop to casually grab her by the upper part of her arm or risk her falling face first into the ground, and the Dinobot finally completed the circle by handing her back to Ratchet.

Stacy grinned up at him as she sprawled out on his wide windshield. "Miss me stud muffin?"

"That wasn't supposed to happen!"

"What is the meaning of this?" Prowl's voice came from the back of the crowd, and said crowd quickly parted to allow the SIC, Prime and glitching Security Director to the center. Prowl took one look at the medic and femme and couldn't help the mocking tone that entered his voice. "Oh, are we interrupting something between you and your…femme friend Ratchet?"

"No!" he vehemently denied and shoved Stacy away, which was easy seeing how the femme had gone completely limp in awe at the newcomers. "In fact, I advise that she be booted out of the _Ark._ She has an…incurable virus! Yes, and she needs to leave before we all become exposed to it."

Ratchet could have beat his own head against the wall until it was denting and sparking when he realized what he had just said. And just as he knew would happen, Optimus' optics sparked with worry above his battle mask as he looked at the femme. "Then we should attempt to make what possibly be her last days as comfortable as possible. We should be fine as long as no one attempts to uplink to her." There were snorts of laughter at the thought, but the Prime ignored them as he stepped forward to great the stranger. "I am-"

"I know exactly who you are!" Stacy squealed and attached herself to one of his arms, making Red Alert look ready to have hissy fit and Prowl to step back in slight surprise as he was shoved from the Prime's side. "Optimus Prime: Leader of the Autobots. If _anyone_ can make my last nights worth living, it's _you."_

Oblivious to her possessive hold and suggestive orange optics, Optimus gave her a smile with his optics and escorted her out of the crowd. Red Alert followed close behind, ranting about security protocols and mandatory full-body inspections in case the enemy had hidden cameras on the femme, and Prowl paused long enough to Ratchet and Jazz. "Who is this and where did she come from?"

"I fear she may be our worst nightmare and she came from the very deepest Pit," Ratchet answered grouchily as he retreated back to his med-bay with Swoop. "Now if you'll excuse me, First Aid is probably panicking around now, and I need to get back to him and tell him that while he might not have paralyzed Ironhide, he should learn to listen when a senior medic tells him something and not try to figure out if it's true on his own!"

**[]**

The next week was, for lack of better wording, a _living nightmare._ No one wanted be caught alone with Stacy in fear of having their audial talked off. She was _way_ worse than Bluestreak ever was; all she did was talk, talk, talk! And while Bluestreak did the same thing and his topics of choice were usually pretty random, he at least had the decency to let the other mech he was with get a word or two in if he wanted to. Stacy just babbled on and on, sometimes even to thin air because she hadn't realized the person she was talking to had left an hour ago, and the topic was always about _her._

First it was about how she had been human. That actually caught the attention of some of the Autobots, Wheeljack and Perceptor in particular, but after the second day of listening to her complain about her former life as a geek-in-disguise cheerleader, a pair of parents that just didn't _understand_ her, and how she was completely alone even though she had scores of people lining up to be her best friend, even they no longer wanted to hear about it.

Then she babbled on how pretty she had become and flaunted it any time she got. No one felt like telling her that while her colors _were_ pretty in small dosages, they were horrendous together. Tracks and Sunstreaker couldn't even bring themselves to stay in the same room as her for long because she was an eye-sore. But her colors weren't the only things that she liked to talk about. She loved flaunting her multi-color optics, which actually scared some of the mechs from time to time because they decided to change while she was looking at them. It was unnatural and Mirage had told Hound that he had only seen one other noble attempt to be that exotic and that noble had been shunned. And then her "hair." Everyone left the room when she started going on about _that_ weird design concept.

But her most disturbing topic of choice was the reason behind the sudden officers' meeting taking place in Optimus Prime's office. The officers sat patiently around the desk occupied by the Prime, who looked more tired than he had ever been during the long war they were still a part of. "I'm sure there's no need to explain why this meeting has been called."

"She's gotta go!" Red Alert immediately piped up, the horns on the top of his head sparking from the stress of it all. "Five of my cameras have been mysteriously broken since she entered the base, and I know it's not the Twins because they haven't been able to slow down long enough with that femme chasing them around the base."

"She's ruined some major projects me, Perceptor, and Skyfire have been working on," Wheeljack added next. "The lack of explosions around the base hasn't been from choice you know, but we haven't even been able to get to that point because she'll prance in and completely change everything because 'she knows what she's doing.' What does that even mean? Obviously she doesn't because she would have left us alone!"

Blaster reassuringly patted the panting engineer on the shoulder as the next mech stepped up.

"She seriously startin' ta scare me," Jazz admitted with a slight shudder. "Ah know it's hard ta believe dat but it's true! She's always givin' me these 'knowin' glances' an' one time she came up ta me in da rec-room an' asked how Prowl was in the bedroom. Ah had terrible mental images fo' da rest o' da day after that!"

Ironhide snorted as the SIC sitting beside him twitched in knowing sympathy for the TIC. "I don't see what the problem with the femme is. She's a perfect volunteer for target practice."

"That's 'cause you're way o' findin' volunteers is by how fast they run when ya shoot at them," Blaster said in aggravation as Wheeljack suddenly began using his shoulder to cry on over his awful, stressful, and explosionless week. "Optimus Ah gotta complaint from me and my little mechs. That femme been tryin' ta put Eject and Rewind in dresses, Ramhorn won't even come outta my chest, and Ah haven' seen Steeljaw in three days after she tried givin' him a bath! She be insistin' that Ah'm secretly in love with Soundwave, an' Ah'm _this close_ ta sendin' her ta Ratchet on a good day."

"Don't you dare," Ratchet snarled from across the room. "I've managed to keep her out of my med-bay by keeping the door locked and the Dinobots close by after she came to me on her first day insisting on wanting to know how she could create a sparkling. And then attempted to get me to demonstrate on her!"

Jumbled complaints ricocheted off the walls of the room as each mech had a thing or two to say about the femme, all of which seemed to be getting worse and worse as the time passed. During the whole time, Optimus sat silently and dejectedly as he watched some of his officers have a breakdown or two. Once the noise began to die down and they turned towards their leader, Optimus released a huge sigh and rubbed the side of his head as if to relieve a headache. "I know that Stacy may not be the most enjoyable to be around-"

"I thought I'd never say this, but she's worse than those pit-spawned Twins."

"Thank you for your opinion Ratchet, but the fact still remains that she is an unarmed femme in need of our protection. I cannot send her away in good conscience."

"She is openly plotting the assassination of Elita One as we speak."

"That bitch has gotta go," Optimus concluded after hearing Prowl's most compelling argument. He turned to Jazz as the saboteur flew off his seat in giddy preparation. "Jazz, I am sure you and Prowl have come up with a plan?"

"Ah been waitin' all week fo' this! Alright, here's da plan…"

**[]**

"This is not going to work," Prowl insisted as he sat at his desk, filling out requests to the humans to restock their supplies. Next up were expense reports for whatever the more reckless Autobots had destroyed.

Jazz glanced back at him before sticking his head back out the door. "Course it is! You know it will; she been houndin' you as much as me."

"Let me rephrase that then. I _hope_ it doesn't work. It would not say much about her mental stability if it does."

"What has she done ta make you think she _is_ mentally stable? Oh! There she is. Quick ta ya position!" The saboteur glanced back in and gave the SIC a thumbs up when he saw the Praxian still at his desk and ignoring him now. "Good! Now Ah'm gonna wrangle her in."

Jazz plastered a coy smile on his lips and dimmed his optic band a tad while Prowl just shook his head in displeasure. Stacy (with a 'y') stopped mid-step when she saw him. "Come on Prowler! We got work ta do; we can do dis _stuff_ later." He acted surprise when he "noticed" the femme frozen in the hallway. "Oh! Hey Stacy. Ah didn't see ya there. Prowl, control yaself! We gotta guest."

Prowl's door-wings twitched in an effort not to snap at the saboteur. But Stacy was eating the act up as she sidled up to the door and attempted to look in past Jazz, who coyly blocked her. "What are you doing in there?"

"Oh you know, _work," _Jazz answered with a chuckle. "What else would ya do in an office alone with ya lover?"

The act was momentarily dropped as Jazz glanced back into the office with worry when something crashed into the wall inches from where he stood. Prowl steadily glared back at him and ignored the now destroyed datapad lying on the floor next to the Polyhexian. Said Polyhexian chuckled nervously and decided to quickly get the charade done before Prowl decided to get violent. "Ya a smart femme Stacy. All dis time we been together and you're da only one who ever guessed. We thought we'd give ya a little…_reward_ fo' bein' so smart."

Stacy squealed and shoved Jazz aside to get into the room. When she noticed Prowl glaring at her from behind his desk, she placed her hands on her wide hips and poked her lip out. "Hey, there's something fishy going on-"

She didn't finish as Jazz tackled with an over exaggerated battle cry and quickly injected the sedative that Ratchet had provided. He grinned proudly from where he sat on the knocked-out femme's back and held the needle up in victory. "Phase one is complete!"

"Good," Prowl stated before flinging a stray stylus at his friend's head. "Now get out before I hurt you."

"Oh come on _Prowler,"_ Jazz said, his coy grin returning as he stood up and sauntered over to provocatively lean on Prowl's desk. "We been friends fo' a _long _time now."

Jazz yelped as the SIC shot across the desk in an attempt to grab and (hopefully) strangle him. He grabbed the leg of the femme and dashed out of the offices but not before yelling back at Prowl. "Ah thought wha' we had was special!"

**[]**

Swindle checked his chronometer for the fifth time and tapped his pede against the ground in impatience. Normally he wouldn't have even waited long enough to check his chronometer for the fifth time, but this was one of his best custormers he was waiting on and it had piqued his curiosity that the client would send him a cryptic ping out of the blue.

_:Swindle!:_ Brawl snarled through the gestalt's personal comm. channel. _:Where the frag are you? You're holding up movie night, and we're supposed to be watching the human movie _Die Hard.:

_:Calm down,:_ Swindle said to his fellow Combaticon in his normal smooth voice. _:I'm just doing a last minute deal and I'll be back soon.:_

Brawl grumbled a bit before severing the communication, and Swindle checked his chronometer one more time. It was at that moment that his client came out of the shadows of the abondoned warehouse they had agreed to meet in.

The con-mech plastered a fake smile onto his face. "I was starting to worry you had bailed out on me. This is a little different from normal." A large rolled up tarp was thrown towards him and he frowned. "What's this?"

"Here's the deal. I'll pay you this amount," the Autobot started, pinging a number to the Decepticon that the mech gawking in astonishment, "to get rid of _this._ I don't care how you do it—and I won't ask—just make it so that she'll never again darken the entrance of the _Ark _again."

Swindle shook his head to get over his surprise and bent down to check under the tarp. "I'm a businessman—not your garbage disposal. What makes you think I'll take this deal?" Another number was sent to him, this time for expenses for however way he felt like disposing the body, and Swindle gave the Autobot a more genuine smile. "You know, sometimes I forget your file says that you're Special Ops. Cruel mechs you lot be. Anyway, nice doing business with you! I trust I'll see you again at the end of the month for those genuine Cybertron Energon goodies."

Bumblebee gave him a wide smile before dancing back into the shadows. Swindle took another look at the tarp and sighed before pinging Brawl. _:Looks like I'm gonna be a little later than I thought.:_

He ignored his gestalt mate's obscenities and dragged his new load out of the warehouse.

**[]**

Megatron and Starscream were in the middle of their third daily argument when Swindle abruptly entered the room and with little preamble dumped his load in front of the duo. "There. Now I expect my payment to be paid in full." He paused and winced at the glare Megatron sent him. "At a later date. I know you're good for it, and I'll just be joining my fellow Combaticons in the rec-room now."

Swindle hurried out of the room, bumping into Skywarp on the way out as the purple Seeker rushed in with Thundercracker trailing behind him. He immediately spotted the tarp and made a beeline for it. "Is she back?" He pulled back part of the tarp to see Stacy blinking back up at him with white optics. "My fangirl!"

"You're fifth fangirl," Thundercracker corrected as his fellow Seeker proceeded to pet the femme like a pet. "And the only reason that one is still functional is because Shockwave took care of it for a stellar cycle and it came back less squishable."

Of course, Thundercracker was ignored like usual as Skywarp praised his fangirl while Megatron and Starscream finished up their fight, which ended with Starscream being shot at all the way out of the room. Megatron grunted, his daily ritual now complete, before turning to the femme. "Well, how did they react?"

"I think I scared most of them," Stacy replied, looking up at Megatron with the type of awe that only a fangirl could exhibit. "They avoided me a lot, and I think some of them were tempted to kill me, but I'm a girl so I was safe."

Megatron smirked thoughtfully as he retreated to his throne. "Excellent. I never imagined after the first fangirl incident that any of your kind would prove useful. Vorns later and I've finally found a way to use you for my biding."

"You can _use_ me anytime," Stacy said, attempting to be seductive but only causing the Decepticon overlord to cringe.

"I have Starscream for that," Megatron said with a deeper cringe as the former human squealed and instantly abandoned the act of seduction. Apparently there was only one way to distract these fangirls, even if that means of distraction _was_ distasteful. "Skywarp get her out of my sight and send Starscream back in. I know he's sulking in the hallway."

The Seekers left, Skywarp dragging the reluctant fangirl out like a child dragging their stuffed toy around the house, and an offended Starscream waltzed back in. "What? Can't you at least let me lick my wounds before forcing me to do something I dislike?"

"You can nurse your bruised ego at some other time. Right now I need more fangirls to create an army that Optimus would never dare raise a weapon against!"

"What do you want me to do?" Starscream screeched above the leader's maniacal laughter. "I don't control when my berth spits out a human; I didn't even want to bring it from our base on Cybertron! Get Shockwave to do it while he's on Earth. He's the one who had the 'ingenious' idea of putting them in a body that makes it more difficult to dispose of them."

"Unlike you, Shockwave is busy doing _important _things. Now go and do my biding!"

While the two mechs started another round of arguing, on the other side of the _Nemesis_ Shockwave experienced a temporary twitch and glanced around the room he was in. "I feel as if I am being spoken of at this moment."

"Aren't you being pres- presum- fraggit! You're being big headed!" Frenzy said snidely as he sat on an empty Energon cube in order to see his fellow Cassettes (who also sat on cubes) sitting around the table. "That's just a stalling tactic! Give me your king so we can move on."

Shockwave sighed and reluctantly handed the card over to the Cassette, who snickered and slapped the pair onto the table to join the rest of his temporary collection. The scientist glanced around the table before his single optic landed on Laserbeak shuffling anxiously in front of her cards. "Laserbeak, I require a…five."

The condor-like Cassette squawked proudly and Soundwave answered monotonously as he rearranged the handcrafted cards in his hand, "Go fish."

Shockwave grunted as the Cassettes snickered and reached for a card from the deck n the center of the table. "What a pointless game these mediocre apes have developed…"

**[]**

A week passed and the Autobots gradually returned to what was considered "normal", which entailed Red Alert running around the _Ark_ shouting false alarms with Inferno chasing him down and for some reason Prowl was now getting mysterious gifts of flowers and Energon candy, which he would immediately throw at a snickering Jazz whenever he found them.

Ratchet was working in the med-bay (at this point where else would be found working?) when he noticed his Dinobot apprentice slouching around instead of working in his usual manner. "Swoop what's wrong?"

Swoop sighed at his mentor's genuine worry and parked himself on one of the empty medical berths. "Swoop wish never come true."

It took a moment for Ratchet to realize what the Dinobot was talking about before he snorted and went on with his business. "That was two weeks ago, and it wouldn't have worked anyway. What did you even wish for?"

"Me Swoop wish for pet like her Carly have," Swoop confided sadly. "Thought having pet would be exciting, but me Swoop never wanted femme to show up."

"None of us did," Ratchet said with a shudder at the memory of her. "I think she scarred First Aid for life. I knew he was a sensitive kid, but I didn't think he'd breakdown like that when she went on an insect killing spree around the _Ark._"

Swoop shrugged before suddenly perking up a bit. "Ratchet, do wish on star on come true?"

"You know what Swoop?" Ratchet answered, stopping long enough to pat the mech on the shoulder. "I think Hound found an abandoned litter of bobcats on one of his hikes, and he's taking care of them until they're old enough to survive on their own. If I can get Hound to let you help him, will you swear to me that you will _never _make another wish on _anything?"_

The Dinobot nodded eagerly, and Ratchet sighed in relief before leading him to where Hound was most likely at. While Swoop's wish may have been completely unrelated to the crazy femme's arrival, the medic didn't feel the need of having a repeat of what they had all just endured.

**[]**

Meanwhile, Bluestreak and Mirage were meandering down the hallway, the younger Praxian babbling about the latest video game the Twins had bought while the former noble politely nodded his head as he pretended to listen.

"-and the graphics are _sweet,_ though the story line is kinda iffy, but you can customize your own character to look _bad ass_, and- hey! What's this?"

Mirage frowned as Bluestreak bent down to retrieve what he would have stepped on without ever seeing. The Praxian had some good optics on him. Bluestreak held the tiny object for him to see, and Mirage hummed when he realized what it was. "That is an acorn. Hound has shown me few on occasion. One must have gotten trapped on his armor and fallen off here. Did you know that humans have this odd belief of it holding wish granting qualities?"

Bluestreak listened with rapt attention as Mirage proceeded to tell him of the procedure.

* * *

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